23:57:40 Saturday, 07 January 2063
Shadowland Seattle --> Marketplace --> Classifieds
| CODE |
| What makes you think Lady Mi wants to be found? ->Annie |
| CODE |
| Annie, are you sure we're talking about finding the same person? I'm talking about she who may yet be Lady Huang Yueying. ->Zhuge Liang |
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| Frag, you type fast. But there's a huge difference between "may" and "is", you know? ->Annie |
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| Fair enough. But she's not a denizen of the shadows, at least to my knowledge. Let's face it, in our line of work, when someone goes missing, especially a 'citizen', it's in all of us to suspect the worst, right? I know we're all jaded and cynical here, but I really do want to make sure she's ok. You seem to have an idea who I'm talking about Annie, would you be willing to help me out? -> Zhuge Liang |
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| Nope, not a clue beyond what you just confirmed for me. Got some guesses though as to why a woman might go disappearing in any line of work, and got a real clear idea of who you think you are. Still, fair's fair, I've found the occasional person who really was lost, and maybe you don't mean to come across as an arrogant son of a bitch. So maybe you pay me in advance to try to find her, and when I do I find out if she wants to talk to you or not. ->Annie |
| CODE |
| My apologies for coming off as arrogant. That is certainly the last impression I wish to convey. I do not know what I said that made you think that. If you refer to the comment where I said 'she may yet be', I only wished to convey that it was my understanding that we were at a point where that was possible. Nothing more. I am willing to pay you in advance to find out what happened to her, with the following caveats: 1. We meet in person to discuss this, you and I. 2. If she does not wish to see or speak with me again, you find out first if she's ok and this is of her own free will under no duress, and second why she refuses to speak with or see me. I don't have to see her or talk to her, but I do want an answer. Even a message will do. Is this acceptable to you? ->Zhuge Liang |
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| Maybe we can do business. I'm okay to meet in person provided you come alone. You choose the place, I'll chose the time. Make it somewhere where neither of us can bring guns. ->Annie |
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| I'm fine with that, but time is a bit tight for me these days. Can you be flexible, and can you give me an idea of the general timeframe you're thinking of? Perhaps you should reply with a PM, or we could continue this in a private chat, since we're starting to get to specifics. ->Zhuge Liang |
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| Switch it then, I'll pick place and you pick time. hey, hang on a sec chummer here's linking us in, watch your PMs for the link ->Annie |
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| here ... waiting ... you here yet? fifteen birds in five fir trees, their feathers were fanned in a fiery breeze, but funny little birds, they had no wings |
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| Hey. I'm here. Sorry, I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long? Should I continue to refer to you as Annie, or do you prefer a different name? ->Zhuge Liang |
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| Weren't too bad -- entertaining myself is all. I'm cool with Annie. So you ready to give me some clue of who I'm looking for? or maybe you want to meet first. Some daeish goronish like that better. You said you're tight on time, so give me some idea when. ->Annie |
| CODE |
| Um, ‘daeish goronish’? What does that mean? As far as time, mostly I just need to leave myself flexibility. How about lunch, say 12:00:00? If you could give me a number I can reach you at in the event of needing to urgently reschedule, that would probably help a lot. Would that be ok with you? ->Zhuge Liang |
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| Llayah. Oops -- I mean, sure, 12's good. In-talk slipping in there. 'Dae' just means loose, so people who are independents, aren't *with* anything formal, get what I mean? You lucked out, you caught me at a real good time, serskha. But I'm lousy with phones, fragging things ain't real reliable around me. Tell you what, you need to reschedule, call up the guys at Chien Four, any of them, it's where we're meeting, and tell them you're going to be late or whatever. They'll get the message out to me. ->Annie |
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| Works for me then. Would you mind giving me an address and a phone number for this place? ->Zhuge Liang |
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| Hang on a sec -- got it. It's 137 South Washington Street, just north of the Amtrak station. It's right across from the Last Supper Club, and you can't miss that! Oh yeah, LTG, LTG ... here it is, 2306-87-234. See you at noon. ->Annie |
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| Got it, thanks. See you then. ->Zhuge Liang |
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| No guns! ->Annie |
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| Paranoid eh? -Zhuge Liang |
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| You can call it that if you like. ->Annie |
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| Cautious then. Very well. No guns. Are there any other conditions you would like to state? ->Zhuge Liang |
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| No, what we've got's good. Unless you'd like to tell me how I'm to recognise you, since I don't think you're going around calling yourself Zhuge Liang. My side it's easy, just ask for me at the door. ->Annie |
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| Good question. I try to avoid being recognizable, for obvious reasons. Password or recognition phrase perhaps? ->Zhuge Liang |
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| Yeah, everyone around here's always average, except for that guy with the bite my snake tattoo. How's this? "Sima Yi has already occupied that city." ->Annie |
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| Works for me. Wait, there’s a guy running around the shadows with a ‘bite my snake tattoo’? ->Zhuge Liang |
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| You'll know him if you see him. Big guy, large snake. ->Annie |
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| Are we speaking metaphorically or literally? Because if it's the former, I don't know if I want to know him, if you get what I'm saying. ->Zhuge Liang |
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| The snake's real enough. It's called Freedy. ->Annie |
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| Freedy? I’ve heard of a guy from the Fields of Fire file on Shadowland that had a huge anaconda called Freddy, but Freedy? What kind of name is that? I thought that posting was some kind of in-joke or something. No wonder Hatchetman was going off about this guy. Wait a minute, you said I will know him if I saw him, not I would know him if I saw him. Are you trying to tell me this guy’s still alive and working? ->Zhuge Liang |
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| I typoed. And if you already knew this guy, why did you ask? ->Annie |
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| I said I read about him, not knew him. And I asked because I thought he was an urban legend. Stuff you hear about but never expect to actually see or experience. You know, like people who don’t wear armor in the Barrens, the Easter Bunny, the corporate executive with the heart of gold, that kind of thing. ->Zhuge Liang |
| CODE |
| Urban legends. What hte general public calls anything it's not easy to believe or that doesn't fit with their experience. You don't keep your head real low, do you? Keep your head low, know when to run away, you don't need to wear armour in the Barrens. Though you'd probbly call it something like "strategic withdrawal". Makes it sound better, I guess. ->Annie |
| CODE |
| Hey, you never know when some random guys might just kick down the front door and start shooting the place up for a reason that has absolutely nothing to do with you. Wrong place, wrong time, you know? It happens. That’s why you always want to be wearing armor, just in case, because it could happen to you. And I wouldn’t call it ‘strategic withdrawal’. I prefer to say ‘temporary repositioning of forces until such time as victory is a more statistically likely outcome.’ :grin: Makes it sound a whole lot more voluntary, don’t you think? ->Zhuge Liang |
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| Yeah, and it happens a whole lot more often when you don't go trying to avoid things like that. Sometimes you've got to fight. Sometimes you don't. It's like Miyagi say to the Karate Kid, easiest way to bug out of a fight, not be there. That's pretty fragging voluntary, and don't end up shooting up a lot of people's homes. ->Annie |
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| Like I said, it's not like you have to go looking for trouble for trouble to find you. And by the way, who’s this Miyagi guy? For that matter, who’s the Karate Kid, some kinda physad? ->Zhuge Liang |
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| Uh huh. Miyagi and the Karate Kid are from the flatvids. Got a friend who's got a huge collection. ->Annie |
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| Flatvid fan yourself? ->Zhuge Liang |
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| Me, not so much, but like I said, I've got friends. You? What do you do for fun? ->Annie |
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| Fun huh? That’s a tough question…I don’t really do a lot for fun. Let me think for a bit. How about you, what do you do for fun? ->Zhuge Liang |
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| Haven't you just spent five minutes quizzing me about that? You looking to hire me or date me? :grin: ->Annie |
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Umm, I think we’re in trouble. These pics are from a security cam at a private terminal at Sea-Tac, taken last night before the snow started packing in. <imbed_pic1> <imbed_pic2> -Nord Des Lingus |
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A guy in a suit getting off a private jet at Sea-Tac. Same suit carrying some bags. Does 'Nord Des Lingus' mean 'Chicken Little' somewhere? -Cynic |
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Yeah, I’m not getting it. -Neil the Code Barbarian |
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It might be more helpful to know that this particular flight came out of Paris. And no, drekface, I'm not saying the sky is falling. -Nord Des Lingus |
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Ok, as much as I like Sherlock Holmes, there does need to be a point in this. -Capital Idea “It’s all just ones and zeros” |
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Hold on Capital. I think I know who this is. They don’t usually work alone, though. You get anyone else from there? -Buscettino |
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Just that one, and I was lucky to get in there in the first place. That crash had Sea-Tac busy, just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Combine that with the weather, and…well, sometimes things come together. -Nord Des Lingus |
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So, you know who this is? -Neil the Code Barbarian |
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It fits. And while I don’t know who that is specifically, I know who he works for and with. Someone paid a good bit of nuyen for him (them, I think). No one spends that kind of money on us; and if they do, Ghost help you. These guys don't mess around -Buscettino |
| QUOTE |
| Still looking for info on that Casimir fellow? *Might* be able to help out a little there. I might need a little info on you first, though; I'm not real friendly with ghouls, but I'm definately not hot on the idea of helping someone collect another body. -> Blondie |
| CODE |
| Okay, lots of people have been getting all cynical about Allstate's latest investment in rain forest restoration projects, thinking there's some ulterior motive or something else going on. The thing is, insurance companies have been investing in the environment for decades now, mostly as a protection for their bottom line. It's actually a little funny; now that national governments are largely ineffectual it's fallen to insurance companies to be the big humanitarians. Yes, I'm actually talking about a corp doing a good deed. Of course for most of them it's mostly for protection of their future bottom lines than any altruistic motives, but hey take what you can get, neh? -> Blondie |
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| Oh for frag's sake, there you go with that psychotic "insurance comapnies are the new nations" idea of yours. Take your idealism elsewhere kid; everyone around here knows better than to trust any corp, let alone one run by insurance agents. -> Skeptic |
| CODE |
| Heh, I admit I have my own doubts about the whole idea, but it's not all *that* far-fetched. It's been happenning for decades now, what with insurance companies slowly co-opting many of the primary functions of government, at least in places that don't have their own extranational populations. For instance... well I'll let the experts speak for me. Take a look at this, published back near the turn of the century. I'll quote the intro here and link to the rest. -> Blondie |
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| Risk is inherent in all human activities, both personal and professional. While the number and variety of risks have grown and changed dramatically throughout history, the basics remain the same: risk of loss of life, limb, health, livelihood, or property due to predictable events (reduced income upon reaching the mandatory retirement age) or to unpredictable events (loss of life in an earthquake). There are some risks that governments, corporations and individuals choose to retain, consenting to pay for any losses that result from those risks. There are many more risks that exposed parties would prefer not to retain. Insurance can often be used as a policy tool to transfer these risks to another party. It has the added advantage that it can encourage the entity through premium reductions to invest in cost-effective risk reduction measures. Increasingly, policy makers have been exploring the proactive use of insurance as a tool to effectively manage environmental risk. In particular, five attributes of insurance exist that make it an effective risk management tool: its ability to effectively spread risk; its role in variance reduction; its ability to segregate risk; its encouragement of loss reduction measures; and its ability to monitor and control behavior. The precondition for utilizing insurance as a policy tool is that the risk in question must meet a set of preconditions that make it insurable. |
| CODE |
| See where I'm going with this? In theory, the insurance company eventually provides the same benefits of a national government. At least you can, "insure domestic Tranquility, [...] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity," as it says in the old US Constitution. All we've got left is Justice and the common Defense and we're all set, and those are more for security companies than insurance anyway. -> Blondie |
| CODE |
| Hah! You may be a wacko, but at least your insanity is intellectually interesting. -> Code Warrior |
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| Info on me? I'm no one of consequence, just another digital voice in the desert of the virtual, calling out in vain to ears deafened by conformism. No one hears my messages. Why do you think they call me Oracle? If you're concerned, though, we could do a private meet at Abraxis. Let me know. Oracle |
| QUOTE |
| All right, Abraxis it is. I'm heading over there in a few minutes myself; I've got a few things to stew over tonight, but if I don't see you how does 11 AM sound? Blondie |